


fortune and glory

by chaosy



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Indiana Jones AU, M/M, enjolras is not lara croft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 05:19:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14205936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosy/pseuds/chaosy
Summary: “So, you're basically Indiana Jones,” Grantaire says.“I am not Indiana Jones.”“Lara Croft,” Grantaire offers.Enjolras wrinkles his nose. “Fuck off.”





	fortune and glory

**Author's Note:**

> told you there'd be more exr. this time: enjolras is a "historical extractor" (definitely not lara croft), grantaire just likes free holidays and shiny things. 
> 
> apologies for the descriptions of the traps and tombs - descriptions are not exactly my strong point. i hope there's enough there to make sense. concrit welcome in the comments, as usual. 
> 
> absolutely no apologies for the title. i could not help myself.

Enjolras arrives in Xidi around two in the morning. He managed to hitch a ride with a horse cart but they'd only take him as far as the highway, which meant walking for another three hours before he got to his host for the night.

Director Zhou is still awake. Enjolras has stayed with her before; she's a tremendous host and keeps very odd hours. Her house is modest, only has two rooms and a small outhouse, but it's a free bed for the night and there's something about her that reminds Enjolras of his sisters.

“Another one like you arrived last week,” she says to him over a late dinner, or very early breakfast. Enjolras lifts his head from his congee.

“Like me?” he asks. They speak in a broken mixture of French and Mandarin.

Director Zhou nods. “French man. Too loud. He rescued Lia's cat from the river and she let him camp in the fields,” she says. Enjolras hums. The sun is making a gradual appearance over the horizon.

“Maybe I'll run into him.” Some tourist, probably. Some guy trying to find himself in the mountains and take selfies with the monks. Enjolras isn't interested in meeting him.

He cleans up after dinner. Director Zhou is very distinguished and respected but says that the nuances of Chinese manners and traditions bore her. Enjolras, as someone with very few social skills, appreciates the rules, but is more than willing to clean up after she's made him dinner and letting him crash on the futon.

She putters around as he falls asleep. He gets in a few hours – she's in her study when he wakes up. He's pretty sure he's never seen her sleep. 

“Yang is waiting for you by the bridge,” she says, not looking up from her laptop. She runs an online business. Lives out here because she likes the peace, apparently, despite her success. Enjolras bids her a good day and promises to get some onions from the store on his way back.

Yang is his contact. He's a stout, middle aged man, who grew up in the French Concession and scoffs over Enjolras's barely-passable Mandarin. He hands him a few papers and a blue key.

“Watch out for the traps,” he says, gruffly. 

“Traps,” Enjolras repeats. He was not aware that there would be traps.

“You'll be fine,” Yang says, and walks off. Enjolras is left by the bridge, staring after him, still very much unclear about the traps.

He makes his way to the store, drops off the onions at Director Zhou's house. He repacks and makes his way across town – Xidi is very small. You can walk around it in about half an hour. It takes him twenty minutes to get to the row of houses at the other end of the river. Yang said to look for a green door.

People still live here. This is someone's home, and Enjolras is sneaking around the back to pick the gate open. Because there's a secret, thousand year-old library about a hundred feet underneath their home that they don't know about, and no one else is allowed to know about. 

The house is silent. Enjolras doesn't feel unsettled. He works quickly in the silence, peacefully, tries not to disturb the dust too much. The pantry seems like a good way in – there's no rush matting like the other rooms, just old floorboards. Enjolras pries up three carefully. The wooden foundation underneath is rotting, and he can pull it apart with his hands. It still takes him a good hour until he reaches the entrance to the pit underneath. The hole is narrow, stretches out into complete darkness, and looks really fucking deep.

Enjolras hears a noise in the garden.

This isn't right. This isn't right at all. The couple who live here are staying with family for the weekend, and Enjolras knows this because he tapped their phones three days ago when he got the call.

He hears footfalls in the grass outside. Definitely a person, it's a  _ one-two-one-two, _ it's no fox sniffing around or one of Lia's animals wandering lost. 

Keys jangle in the lock and Enjolras does something very stupid. 

He doesn't anchor himself. He doesn't set a timer. He swings into the tunnel, wedges his foot into the mud walls for a hold and pulls the floorboards back over his head. He doesn't nail them back into place like he was planning to do when he hoisted himself back up (with the anchor he would've set if he wasn't such a  _ fucking idiot _ ), just puts them in place so it looks like someone hasn't pried them up. 

That is roughly the same moment that his footholds crumble and he starts falling.

He tries to grab at the walls, nearly breaking his fucking fingers in the pitch dark. From the whoosh of air it feels like the tunnel gets wider the further down he falls. 

It's definitely more than a hundred feet. Enjolras's last clear thought before he hits the ground is that he is so fucked.

–

He's not dead. That's his first thought. His second thought is that he's probably going to die.

His backpack is wedged between his back and whatever broke his fall. It feels soft, somewhat lumpy, with a weird grittiness to it that Enjolras can't explain. Moving to root around blindly in his backpack for his torch doesn't cause him any kind of intense pain other than a pull in his shoulders, so nothing's broken, that he's aware of. 

The warm light of the torch shows him that he's in a very small room, with very little floor space. The grittiness is dust, and he's laying on a canvas sheet that covers something that feels like a boulder-size pile of couch cushions. The whole room is similarly covered in canvas sheets covering lumpy shapes. Nothing is moving, and judging by how much dust he's covered with and how much is currently up his nose, he's the first one here in a very long time.

He slowly sets his torch down and stretches out his limbs individually, slowly. His left wrist is definitely sprained and his back and hips hurt pretty badly now that he's conscious. He's bleeding from a muddy cut on his skull and has scrapes on his hands from clawing at the mud walls. Miraculously, that's it.

He can walk. Running is not an option right now. Speed and efficiency, the main reason why Enjolras gets hired to do this shit, are not options right now. He is so fired.

He sinks to his knees on a spare patch of floor, keeping his torch upright as a lamp. He has a flat mirror tucked into the pocket of his bag and uses it to clean up his hair, using half his bottle to try and rinse out the wound. There's not a lot he can do other than keep it clean and hope he doesn't have a concussion.

He allows himself fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes to wince his way through sterilising the cut and wiping the scrapes over his body, to sip a little water, stretch out slowly and breathe. He has no way of getting back up. There's no signal he can get this far down. He's on his own. 

Time to go. Enjolras picks up his torch and finds the door, which doesn't need cracking open, thankfully. It leads out into a pitch black corridor, three doors on either side. He opens them all one at a time, keeping them open.

The papers explain roughly where he should go. The door he picks leads into what looks like a waiting room, with stately wooden benches, impossibly old. The walls are flat stones that are a strange rich red, the paintings hung up are probably worth millions.

Enjolras isn't here for them. He's here for a door that's meant to be by the wooden chair in the corner. 

There is no door by the wooden chair in the corner. There are no doors at all.

“Fuck,” he says, out loud. He likes silence but he feels like the situation calls for it.

He heads back into the corridor, checks all the other rooms. All the same, red stone walls, paintings or chairs in them, and no doors.

“Fuck,” Enjolras says again. 

He goes back into the first room. Carefully he runs his fingers along the stones, rests his head against one. The cooling sensation is nice on his aching head. As is the soft gust of air against his neck.

The soft gust of –  _ what _ .

He jerks back. He presses his hand against the ridge between the two stones, feels air tickling at his hand. That's a draft, which means there's another room on the other side of this wall.

Fucking ancient lords and their fucking penchant for puzzles.

He puts on a pair of gloves and feels the frames of the paintings, and more cautiously, the artwork themselves. He lifts them down to reveal nothing but stone wall underneath them, no switches. He jumps up and down on the floor, presses his hand into each individual stone carefully. He moves the furniture, feels around for a switch, a lever, something.

Nothing. Enjolras has done a lot, from picking locks to burning away paintings to reveal keys in their frames, to navigating levers and pulleys in order to get through a particular tomb in Egypt. This is – annoying.

He goes back to where he can feel the breeze from the crack again, runs his finger along it. He tucks his torch under his arm and pulls his knife free of his belt. He pulls out the slimmest blade and – carefully,  _ carefully _ – inserts it into the crack between the stones.

There's nothing to feel as he slides it around. And then he reaches something more solid, but it's got a little bit of give.  _ Nothing to lose _ , Enjolras thinks, and presses his knife firmly against it until there's a soft click.

He allows himself a grin before there's an enormous, terrifying crack. 

Enjolras panics. Just a bit. He pockets his knife and steps back into the corridor, watches as the stones drag open.

Trouble is, at the same time, the ceiling opens and stones start falling through onto the floor, effectively beginning to seal him out. Very fast.

“Oh fuck,” Enjolras says out loud, and takes a running jump, over the stone wall that's rapidly increasing in size and through the burgeoning hole in the opposite wall. 

He lands heavily, his body protesting at another fucking fall, and Enjolras is not enjoying this job, he really isn't. The wall closes up behind him too fast for him to head back. God, he's screwed.

The room he's in is larger than the waiting rooms. It looks like a boardroom or a dining room of sorts, with a massive wooden table and chairs around it, statues in the corners. But Enjolras doesn't get a good look at it, because his attention immediately goes to the figure directly in front of him.

“Enjolras?”

Grantaire.

“Grantaire?” Enjolras says, still on the floor. He drags himself up slowly, staggering a bit.

Grantaire is poised for a fight, one hand holding out a wicked looking knife. He shifts back to stand normally, but he keeps the knife at his belt. 

If they're going to fight, Enjolras knows his odds are shit. For one, Grantaire is an actual boxer, and Enjolras's body is fucked by this point. Plus, his knife is bigger than Enjolras's nifty little multitool. 

They stand silently for a moment, looking at each other. Grantaire seems to snap out of something, hurrying to him, touching him carefully. His fingers go to the dried blood in Enjolras's hair and he winces.

“You're hurt,” Grantaire says. 

“You are definitely not a travel blogger,” Enjolras replies. Grantaire laughs.

“No. Come on, sit down.”

Enjolras lets him lead him to one of the thousand year-old chairs, lets him get a considerably impressive medical kit out and begin prodding him.

“I thought we were going to fight for a minute there,” he says, closing his eyes as Grantaire presses something cold and hard against a bruise on his head. It feels  _ great _ .

Grantaire hums. “I couldn't fight you. Besides, we're both not supposed to be here. I've got shit on you too now,  _ geophysicist _ .”

“I  _ was _ a geophysicist,” Enjolras argues, and then hisses as Grantaire starts to properly clean his head wound.

“Of course you were,” Grantaire says. “For how long?”

Even like this, Enjolras pauses. “About a month,” he admits. “Got my first offer last spring.”

He can feel the hurt coming off Grantaire even though he has his eyes closed. “That was before I even met you,” Grantaire says, his hands going still. 

“You can't be annoyed,” Enjolras says. “You've been telling me you're a travel blogger for the past year and a half.”

“I  _ am _ a travel blogger. It's just that occasionally people ask me to retrieve items in secret underground bunkers and pay me lots of money for the pleasure. How do you think I afforded America back in the summer?”

“PR money?” Enjolras guesses, dimly, and Grantaire laughs. It doesn't sound like his usual laughter, though. It sounds a little bit sad.

“That's what I'm going to keep telling everyone,” he says.

Grantaire hums again and applies something that smells godawful to his head and puts butterfly strips on the cut. “I don't have any surgical thread on me,” he says, apologetically. “You're not in a good way, ange. You're black and blue. You try and fight the walls or something?”

Enjolras opens his eyes again. He's pretty sure he has a concussion. This must be all some very elaborate hallucination. 

Grantaire isn't dressed in his usual paint-stained shirts and jeans. His clothes are sand-coloured, khaki and olive, a comfortable brown leather jacket on his shoulders that Enjolras got him as a birthday present. His hair is tied back and his beard is a little grown out.

He's filled with a weird compulsion to kiss him.

They've kissed  before. They've kissed a lot. Enjolras first slept with Grantaire on the first night he met him expecting to not see him again, but Marius kept bringing him to club meetings because he had a penchant for strays, and Enjolras didn't want to stop sleeping with him. So he didn't.

It was an arrangement that worked very well. Grantaire is away a lot, works as a travel photographer and blogger, which started out as a cheap road trip that turned into a career. Enjolras, too, had a fledgling (which turned into a semi successful) career as what was effectively a  _ historical extractor _ acquiring artefacts to be given back to their rightful owners.

He doesn't pocket things that aren't his. He doesn't sell on the black market. People need pieces of history that tell the truth, or that have been stolen from their family. He once got a Renoir back to a Jewish family after it had been stolen by the Nazis. Sometimes he doesn't even work for money.

He explains all of this to Grantaire between bites of a protein bar and some water that Grantaire insists he drinks. Whilst Enjolras resents the assumption that this is his first raid, he appreciates the care.

“So, you're basically Indiana Jones,” Grantaire says.

“I am not Indiana Jones.”

“Lara Croft,” Grantaire offers.

Enjolras wrinkles his nose. “Fuck off.”

Grantaire's laughter bouncing off the walls is a beautiful sound.

–

Grantaire, it turns out, does sell on the black market. Enjolras holds off on the lecture. They've been lying to each other for almost two years, he's not really in a place to get righteous on him.

Grantaire does genuinely like travel blogging, it just doesn't pay enough that he can do it full time. Then someone heard that he'd found a frog made of lapis lazuli in a chateau he wasn't supposed to be in, and offered him five thousand for it up front, ten thousand if he could find a piece of parchment in a temple in India. Then the next one came, and the next one. 

“I know these people aren't good people. But they don't ask questions, and neither do I,” Grantaire explains. He's eyeing Enjolras carefully, evidently, waiting for a lecture.

Enjolras doesn't give one. He shrugs. “We do what we need to do.”

Grantaire's eyebrows shoot up. “I don't know you  _ at all _ .”

There's an awkward silence. Grantaire doesn't know him. And Enjolras doesn't know Grantaire either.

“Well,” Enjolras says. “You now know me a lot better than anyone else,” he offers, weakly. Grantaire seems mollified, though, and rubs his shoulder gently. 

“Another conversation for another time, I think,” Grantaire says to him. “You okay to carry on?”

Enjolras frowns. “Are you coming with me?” he asks.

Grantaire looks at him pointedly. “I'm a little bit worried that you're going to die, Enjolras,” he says. 

“Fair enough,” Enjolras says, and stands up.

Grantaire has his own set of instructions that he won't let Enjolras see, but they seem to be following a similar route. The door to the chamber is locked, and Enjolras gets out his roll of lockpicks. Grantaire just kicks the door open with his boot.

“This place is  _ a thousand years old _ ,” Enjolras says, horrified.

Grantaire shrugs and shoots him a grin. 

Enjolras holds his tongue when the things they pass get distinctly more valuable. Grantaire doesn't take much – his fingers linger over a gilded oil lamp but he glances back at Enjolras and doesn't take it. 

“I don't mind, you know,” he says to him quietly as Grantaire lets him pick the lock of another door.

“Yes you do,” Grantaire says, and that's the end of that. 

They pass through what must've been a bedroom, that's absolutely stunning. There's real gold thread embroidered on the covers, the walls are draped in deep blue. Enjolras's instructions just say that there's a hidden door in the closet. Nothing about the beauty of the place. 

They rest there for a minute. Enjolras is so much slower when he's injured. Grantaire forces another protein bar down him and half a bottle of water, and he sits at the foot of the bed, watching him look around the room.

There's a brilliant gold brooch that's clipped onto an ornate tree on a desk. Grantaire moves towards it like a magpie. There's a fat, glistening opal with the gold looping around it, tiny characters on the sides that Enjolras can't read.

He's going to take it. It's probably worth thousands, untouched for years. It'd pay for flights, expensive hotels, food, booze.

“Cosette's birthday is soon,” is all Grantaire says. Enjolras finds himself smiling.

Grantaire, very delicately, unclips it from the tree, which snaps back once the brooch is released. Just as he slots it into a small bag to stow away, there's a very loud crack.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says, standing slowly. “That did not sound good.”

“You're right,” Grantaire says, just as the ceiling opens and about a hundred blades swing down from the rafters.

Grantaire thinks faster than Enjolras does. He shoves him hard until they're both on the floor, underneath the bed. Enjolras nearly chokes on the dust.

He can't see anything but he can hear the  _ swoosh-swoosh _ of the blades moving through the air, can hear them ripping the fabric of the bed to ribbons.

“They're swinging in tandem,” he whispers to Grantaire.

“Shit,” Grantaire says, emphatically. Enjolras agrees with him.

Tentatively, Grantaire pokes the end of a small wooden stick out from under the bed. When he brings it back, it's chopped in two.

“So, they're close to the floor,” he says to Enjolras.

“And very sharp,” Enjolras replies.

“I think we might be a little bit screwed,” Grantaire says.

“Should've known Yang wasn't kidding when he mentioned the traps,” Enjolras says.

“Traps?” Grantaire echoes. “You got told about traps? Lucky bastard. Who are you working with? I got told this was an easy, in and out job, not where I'd be ambushed by injured boyfriends and a  _ room that's trying to kill me _ .”

Enjolras blinks. “Boyfriend?”

“I – yeah?” Grantaire says. There's a very awkward silence, punctuated by the sounds of the blades cutting through the air and battering the furniture.

After a moment, Enjolras says, “Probably not the best time to have that discussion.”

“You're probably right,” Grantaire agrees. “How are we getting out of here?”

Enjolras considers this. Looks to his left. 

“Please tell me that's not a very large bed pan,” Grantaire's voice breathes into his ear.

“It'll do,” Enjolras says. Grantaire groans.

–

He's not actually sure if it's a bed pan. It's larger than your average serving bowl, and made of metal with a curved inside, and – it's probably a bed pan.

Point is, Enjolras can fit his body under it if he curls up into a tight ball. And when he slides it out from under the bed, it withstands the blades hammering at it without denting. He puts it over his head and starts slowly to crawl out.

“Enjolras.” Grantaire's hand is on his arm. Enjolras looks back at him.

“Don't die. We have conversations to have,” he says.

Enjolras doesn't say that the room full of razor sharp swinging blades is preferable to a serious conversation about his relationship with Grantaire, but his expression must do, because Grantaire rolls his eyes and lifts his hand to his mouth for a quick, dry kiss.

“Don't die,” he repeats. Enjolras nods.

It's a tough, painfully slow job. He ends up at the foot of the bed and curled up under the pan, wedged between the trajectory of two blades that only just miss him as they swing past him. Very slowly, he stands up, the blade above him clattering still on top of the pan.

He moves fast. He swings the pan off his head and back to the edge of the bed for Grantaire in the same motion as jumping into a free spot. The blades only swing on one path, so there are blind spots, so to speak. 

Enjolras just has to make it across the room without getting sliced to pieces.

“The closet,” he calls to Grantaire. “It's got a hidden door inside of it.”

“Do you mean the closet  _ across the room full of swinging blades _ ?” Grantaire's voice is muffled, coming out from under the bed.

“Unfortunately, yes,” he says.

“I am never going anywhere with you again,” Grantaire yells back.

It takes Enjolras two hours to navigate the room. Grantaire is a step behind him, having used the same trick with the pan. They throw it carefully back and forth, using it as a makeshift shield when jumping past the blades. 

By the time he reaches the closet Enjolras is exhausted and the blood has rushed to his legs from standing still and moving so slowly for so long. Grantaire, who's in considerably better shape than he is, is tense and pale-faced. He staggers into the closet after Enjolras and shuts the door tight after them. 

They don't pause. Enjolras fumbles with his flashlight – Grantaire holds it for him as he finds the small door hidden by the wall panels. He inserts the blue key and it clicks open without issue.

Grantaire practically shoves him out first, the two of them landing in what looks like a library when both their flashlights rove around the room. It's a squat room, stuffed to the gills with books.

“Fuck me,” Grantaire says. Enjolras nods and leans against him heavily.

Grantaire's arm comes up around him immediately. “You're flagging,” he said. “How far did you fall, again?”

“Too far,” Enjolras replies. He can still hear the swish of the blades.

Grantaire makes him sit on the floor for a bit, slumps down with him. “I think I might have a concussion,” Enjolras says, after a minute. Grantaire pats his back.

“We'll sort it out once we're out of here.”

They set out some portable lanterns, enough that they can light the room, start at either ends of the shelves. Grantaire is looking for something. Enjolras doesn't know what, doesn't ask.

It takes him a full hour to find the book – honestly, he was expecting more. Yang's instructions gave him the character and shelf it was on but the books are placed haphazardly, some shoved to the backs of the shelves. Enjolras pores through them indiscriminately. If he were in different shape he would've taken some more, read through them before donating them. But he's not feeling like himself, and he wants to get out of this place, away from Grantaire's eyes.

“That's my book.”

Enjolras turns to look at him.

“Your book,” he says, slowly, his grip tightening on the spine a little bit.

Grantaire definitely notices. “I'm assuming that it's your book, too,” he says.

“Not mine,” Enjolras replies. “My employer.”

“Semantics,” Grantaire says. “We both need that book, is what I'm saying.” He unfolds the paper directions in his pocket – the picture is the exact same as the one in the directions that Yang gave him.

There's a silence. Enjolras measures up Grantaire, the knife at his side, his eyes on the book -

“Take it,” he says, holding it out.

Grantaire almost staggers in shock, the dramatic bastard. “ _ Enjolras _ -”

“I mean it, take it,” he says, and almost forces the book into Grantaire's hand.

“Enjolras, you gave yourself a  _ concussion  _ for this thing, and you're just going to hand it over to -”

“I'm not going to get killed if I don't hand it over,” Enjolras interrupts, smoothly. He can make assumptions. Grantaire goes still.

“How do you figure,” he says, his voice quieter. 

Enjolras presses a hand against the shelf. His head really does hurt. “I work for slightly rebellious academics. You work for – people whose names I most certainly don't want to know. If they don't come after you for it then they might come after me.”

“They have no idea who you are. I'd never tell them,” Grantaire swears.

“I don't doubt it. Just – keep it, R, I'll think of some explanation,” Enjolras says. He doesn't usually use Grantaire's nickname unless he's in a particular mood. Grantaire picks up on this.

“Alright. Alright then,” he says, quietly, almost decisively. “Can't even argue with you when you're dead on your feet. Come on. Let's get out of here.”

They have the same directions to an exit, and it's blissfully unproblematic. It's three hundred stairs that they make their way up painfully slowly, Enjolras dragging further and further behind until he's clinging onto Grantaire's hand just because he fears he'll fall if he doesn't. 

They come to a mossy wall, with the sound of water behind it. Grantaire runs his hands over the brickwork and presses one down, and the wall shudders and slides down gratingly. 

It leads out into what must be some kind of sewage tunnel, dank and narrow. They climb up at the first ladder just to get away from the darkness.

It's morning outside. They're in a sideroad, about two miles from Xidi. Enjolras pulls himself up, braces himself for the walk. 

“No,” Grantaire says, pulling him back. There's a scooter leaning against the fence. “This is my ride. Yours too.”

Enjolras could kiss him. He does, blindly, underneath his ear when he sits himself on the scooter. Grantaire takes his hand and presses it against his stomach, squeezes.

They drive back. Grantaire drops him off at Director Zhou's and hovers in the doorway as Enjolras drags himself off for a shower, speaking in steady Mandarin to her and trying to bow and formally thank her for the residence of his friend and -

“Enough, please,” Director Zhou says, in French, slightly perturbed. “Take off your shoes and come inside. There's food if you want it.”

Enjolras listens to the exchange with a smile. Grantaire speaks to her in Mandarin and he can recognise him using the most formal speech. He can imagine he's sitting stiffly on her futon, fiddling with his jacket as she drifts around him, unbothered.

He doesn't hear him leave, but he's gone by the time Enjolras finishes up in the bathroom. Director Zhou surveys him critically as he sits down. 

“Do you need the hospital?” she asks. 

Enjolras shakes his head. “I'll be fine. Did he leave?”

“Yes. He likes you,” she says bluntly. “He's the man who's staying in Lia's fields. Said he'd call you.”

Enjolras doesn't say anything. He sits back and runs his hand over the handle of his backpack, thinks about the space where the book should be.

He thinks about Grantaire.

–

“You're a lucky bastard, you know, I would kill for a paid holiday in China.”

“I wasn't on holiday,” Enjolras says. “I was – looking at dirt samples.”

“I'm sure that's code for having a gloriously debaucherous time across the far east,” Feuilly says.

“It's  _ Enjolras _ ,” Grantaire cuts in, stealing a seat at their table. “Looking at dirt samples  _ is  _ a gloriously debaucherous time.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes. The movement still pulls a little at the cut on his scalp and he winces imperceptibly. No one notices – aside from Grantaire, who shoots him a look.

They haven't had a proper conversation since Xidi. 

Enjolras got back two days ago. He saw the doctor, slept for sixteen hours, dragged himself to the cafe where the others wanted to hear about how work was going. Grantaire was there, because Grantaire is always there. 

It's a good evening. Enjolras sinks into the company of his friends easily. He's distracted – Yang was livid, luckily bought into Enjolras's story of running into someone else and losing it in a fight – but Enjolras won't be getting called upon again for a long while. Grantaire keeps shooting him looks, silently checking on him. He manages a small smile back as he hears from Marius about his wedding plans.

As they disperse, Enjolras is the last left at the table. Grantaire takes the seat next to him and orders two coffees for the both of them. 

“Thank you,” Enjolras says.

“Not at all,” Grantaire replies.

They sit quietly for a while. He feels fucking awkward. He hasn't forgotten what Grantaire said –  _ boyfriend – _ and he knows Grantaire hasn't either.

“Do you want to get dinner?” he asks, after a minute.

Grantaire looks at him oddly, long fingers wrapped around his mug. “Pardon?” he says.

“Dinner,” Enjolras says, again.

“Takeout?”

Enjolras makes an exasperated noise. “No, I mean – you and me. Going out for dinner. Together.”

Grantaire raises his eyebrows very high indeed. His hair is loose today, curling messily around his shoulders. Enjolras wants to put his hands in it. 

“You're asking me out on a date,” Grantaire says. It's not a question.

Enjolras shifts awkwardly. “Well – if you're my boyfriend, I – yeah.”

“Boyfriends usually do things other than covert sex at each others' apartments,” Grantaire points out, carefully.

“So we'll do those things,” Enjolras says. “I can buy you flowers.”

“Don't buy me flowers,” Grantaire says. There's a beat of quiet, and then he starts to smile. He lifts his hand to touch at Enjolras's hair that's hiding the cut.

Enjolras twitches a little. Instead of pulling away like he usually would, Grantaire hums and slides his hand down to grip his jaw.

“I've got a job in Rome in two weeks,” he says to him. “Come along.” It's not a question.

Enjolras nods. He presses his hand over Grantaire's on his jaw, leans in. The kiss isn't easy or natural even though it should be – they've kissed plenty of times. It doesn't feel bad, though. It feels new.

“Did you want to do dinner now?” Grantaire asks him, pressing his lips against his cheek, his ear. Enjolras shuts his eyes and leans into it.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, even though he'd like to just take Grantaire home and undress him. “Yeah, let's go now.”

They've got time. Have to start somewhere, after all.


End file.
